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In the foreground, a red blended winglet extends up from the port wing tip of a Boeing 737-800. In the background, a yellow wingtip fence on the starboard wing of an Airbus A319

Wingtip devices are intended to improve the efficiency of fixed-wing aircraft.[1] There are several types of wing tip devices, and although they function in different manners, their intended effect is always to reduce the aircraft's drag by partial recovery of the tip vortex energy. Wingtip devices can also improve aircraft handling characteristics and enhance safety for following aircraft. Such devices increase the effective aspect ratio of a wing without materially increasing the wingspan. An extension of span would lower lift-induced drag, but would increase parasitic drag and would require boosting the strength and weight of the wing. At some point, there is no net benefit from further increased span. There may also be operational considerations that limit the allowable wingspan (e.g., available width at airport gates).

Wingtip devices increase the lift generated at the wingtip (by smoothing the airflow across the upper wing near the tip) and reduce the lift-induced drag caused by wingtip vortices, improving lift-to-drag ratio. This increases fuel efficiency in powered aircraft and increases cross-country speed in gliders, in both cases increasing range.[1]U.S. Air Force studies indicate that a given improvement in fuel efficiency correlates directly with the causal increase in the aircraft's lift-to-drag ratio.[2]

Line drawing of wingtip vortices behind a conventional wingtip (on the left) and a blended winglet (on the right)

The initial concept dates back to 1897, when English engineer Frederick W. Lanchester patented wing end-plates as a method for controlling wingtip vortices.[3] In the United States, Scottish-born engineer William E. Somerville patented the first functional winglets in 1910. Somerville installed the devices on his early biplane and monoplane designs.[4]

Vincent Burnelli received US Patent no: 1,774,474 for his "Airfoil Control Means" on August 26, 1930.[5]

The earliest-known implementation of a Hoerner-style downward-angled "wingtip device" on a jet aircraft was the so-called Lippisch-Ohren (Lippisch ears), allegedly attributed to the Messerschmitt Me 163's designer Alexander Lippisch, and first added to the M3 and M4 third and fourth prototypes of the Heinkel He 162ASpatz jet light fighter for evaluation. This was done in order to counteract the dutch roll characteristic the marked three degrees of dihedral angle for each wing panel that the original He 162 design's wings possessed.[6] As production of the Third Reich's chosen turbojet-powered emergency fighter was of prime importance at the start of 1945, disruption of the production line to make other types of changes to correct such a problem were not likely to have been available, and the added wingtip devices became a standard feature of the approximately 320 completed He 162A jet fighters built, with hundreds more He 162A airframes going unfinished by V-E Day.[7][citation needed]

Following the end of World War II, Dr. Sighard F. Hoerner was a pioneer researcher in the field, having written a technical paper published in 1952[8] that called for drooped wingtips whose pointed rear tips focused the resulting wingtip vortex away from the upper wing surface. Drooped wingtips are often called "Hoerner tips" in his honor. Gliders and light aircraft have made use of Hoerner tips for many years.[9][10]

The term "winglet" was previously used to describe an additional lifting surface on an aircraft, e.g., a short section between wheels on fixed undercarriage. Richard Whitcomb's research in the 1970s at NASA first used winglet with its modern meaning referring to near-vertical extension of the wing tips.[11] The upward angle (or cant) of the winglet, its inward or outward angle (or toe), as well as its size and shape are critical for correct performance and are unique in each application. The wingtip vortex, which rotates around from below the wing, strikes the cambered surface of the winglet, generating a force that angles inward and slightly forward, analogous to a sailboat sailing close hauled. The winglet converts some of the otherwise-wasted energy in the wingtip vortex to an apparent thrust. This small contribution can be worthwhile over the aircraft's lifetime, provided the benefit offsets the cost of installing and maintaining the winglets.[citation needed]

Another potential benefit of winglets is that they reduce the intensity of wingtip vortices,[12] which trail behind the plane and pose a hazard to other aircraft.[13] Minimum spacing requirements between aircraft operations at airports is largely dictated by these factors. Aircraft are classified by weight (e.g. "Light," "Heavy," etc.) because the vortex strength grows with the aircraft lift coefficient, and thus, the associated turbulence is greatest at low speed and high weight.[citation needed]

The drag reduction permitted by winglets can also reduce the required takeoff distance.[14]

Winglets and wingtip fences also increase efficiency by reducing vortex interference with laminar airflow near the tips of the wing,[15] by 'moving' the confluence of low-pressure (over wing) and high-pressure (under wing) air away from the surface of the wing. Wingtip vortices create turbulence, originating at the leading edge of the wingtip and propagating backwards and inboard. This turbulence 'delaminates' the airflow over a small triangular section of the outboard wing, which destroys lift in that area. The fence/winglet drives the area where the vortex forms upward away from the wing surface, since the center of the resulting vortex is now at the tip of the winglet.[citation needed]

Even before NASA did flight testing on winglets, Burt Rutan incorporated them in his innovative Rutan VariEzehomebuilt aircraft design, which made its first flight with winglets on May 21, 1975. The VariEze pioneered glass-reinforced plastic composite construction in homebuilt aircraft, which simplified fabrication of the winglets. He reduced the resulting drag penalty by assigning double duty to the winglets; they also serve as vertical stabilizers and rudders in his canard, pusher configuration aircraft. They were also used similarly on the derivative Rutan Long-EZ and reappeared on his Beechcraft Starship business aircraft design that first flew in 1986.[16] Conventional winglets were fitted to Rutan's Rutan Voyager, the first aircraft to circumnavigate the world without refueling in 1986. The aircraft's wingtips were damaged, however, when they dragged along the runway during takeoff, grinding off about 1 foot (30 cm) of each wingtip, so the flight was made without benefit of winglets.[17]

Learjet exhibited the prototype Learjet 28 at the 1977 National Business Aviation Association convention. The Model 28 prototype employed the first winglets ever used on a jet and a production aircraft, either civilian or military. Learjet developed the winglet design without NASA assistance. Although the Model 28 was intended to be a prototype experimental aircraft, performance was so impressive that it resulted in a production commitment from Learjet. Flight tests, made with and without winglets, showed that the winglets increased range by about 6.5 percent and also improved directional stability. Learjet's application of winglets to production aircraft continued with newer models including the Learjet 55, 31, 60, 45, and Learjet 40.[citation needed]

Gulfstream Aerospace also explored winglets in the late 1970s and incorporated winglets in the Gulfstream III, IV and V. The performance of the Gulfstream V has been exemplary. Its operational range of 6,500 nmi (12,038 km) permits routine nonstop business travel for routes such as New York–Tokyo. The Gulfstream V also holds over 70 world and national flight records.[18]

Winglets are also applied to several other business jets to reduce take-off distance, enabling operation out of smaller secondary airports, and allowing higher cruise altitudes for overflying bad weather, both of which are valuable operational benefits for corporate travel. In addition to factory-installed winglets on new aircraft, aftermarket vendors developed retrofit kits, for popular jets and turboprops, to improve both aerodynamics and appearance. Winglets became so popular on this class of aircraft that the Dassault Group, whose French designers resisted applying them on their Dassault Falcon line until recently, were forced to run a contrarian marketing campaign. Cessna recently announced they were partnering with Winglet Technology, LLC of Wichita, Kansas, to test a new wingtip device called Elliptical Winglets, which are designed to increase range and increase payload on hot and high departures.[19]

Boeing announced a new version of the 747 in October 1985, known as the 747-400, with an extended range and capacity. With that particular model, Boeing used a combination of winglets and increased span to carry the additional load. The winglets increased the 747-400's range by 3.5 percent over the 747-300, which is otherwise aerodynamically identical but has no winglets.[20] Winglets are preferred for Boeing derivative designs based on existing platforms, because they allow maximum re-use of existing components. Newer designs are favoring increased span, other wingtip devices or a combination of both, whenever possible.

In 2002, Boeing first flew a production Next-Generation 737 with its new Blended Winglets, 6-foot (1.8 m) extensions that decrease fuel consumption by about 4 to 6 percent. The airplane gained supplemental type certification in 2003, and the majority of 737s delivered today are equipped with the devices.[citation needed]

A blended winglet is attached to the wing with smooth curve instead of a sharp angle and is intended to reduce interference drag at the wing/winglet junction. A sharp interior angle in this region can interact with the boundary layer flow causing a drag inducing vortex, negating some of the benefit of the winglet. The blended winglet is used on business jets and sailplanes, where individual buyer preference is an important marketing aspect.

Airbus tested two candidate blended winglets, designed by Winglet Technology and Airbus themselves, for the Airbus A320 family,[22] but determined that their benefits did not warrant further development.

In 2009 Airbus launched a new blended winglet design which the company called a "Sharklet", designed to enhance the payload-range performance of the A320 Family. Sharklets are expected to result in a reduced fuel burn of up to 4 percent over longer sectors,[23] which may correspond to an annual CO2 reduction of around 700 tonnes per aircraft.[citation needed] They are also offered as a retrofit option. The A320 was the first model fitted with Sharklets, which was delivered in 2012.[24][25]

A wingtip fence refers to the winglets including surfaces extending both above and below the wingtip, as described in Whitcomb's early research.[11] Both surfaces are shorter than or equivalent to a winglet possessing similar aerodynamic benefits. Wingtip fences were the preferred wingtip device of Airbus for many years, employed on all their airliners except for the Airbus A320 Enhanced (using winglets), A330 and A340 families. The A350 and Airbus A320neo family will also make use of winglets rather than wingtip fences.[citation needed] The An-158 also uses wingtip fences.[citation needed]

In 1987, mechanical engineerPeter Masak called on aerodynamicist Mark D. Maughmer, an associate professor of aerospace engineering at the Pennsylvania State University, about designing winglets to improve performance on his 15-meter wingspan racing sailplane. Others had attempted to apply Whitcomb's winglets to gliders before, and they did improve climb performance, but this did not offset the parasitic drag penalty in high-speed cruise. Masak was convinced it was possible to overcome this hurdle.[26] By trial and error, they ultimately developed successful winglet designs for gliding competitions, using a new PSU–90–125 airfoil, designed by Maughmer specifically for the winglet application. At the 1991 World Gliding Championships in Uvalde, Texas, the trophy for the highest speed went to a winglet-equipped 15-meter class limited wingspan glider, exceeding the highest speed in the unlimited span Open Class, an exceptional result.[27] Masak went on to win the 1993 U.S. 15 Meter Nationals gliding competition, using winglets on his prototype Masak Scimitar.[28]

The Masak winglets were originally retrofitted to production sailplanes, but within 10 years of their introduction, most high-performance gliders were equipped from the factory with winglets or other wingtip devices.[29] It took over a decade for winglets to first appear on a production airliner, the original application that was the focus of the NASA development. Yet, once the advantages of winglets were proven in competition, adoption was swift with gliders. The point difference between the winner and the runner-up in soaring competition is often less than one percent, so even a small improvement in efficiency is a significant competitive advantage. Many non-competition pilots fitted winglets for handling benefits such as increased roll rate and roll authority and reduced tendency for wing tip stall. The benefits are notable, because sailplane winglets must be removable to allow the glider to be stored in a trailer, so they are usually installed only at the pilot's preference.[citation needed]

Raked wingtips are a feature on some Boeingairliners, where the tip of the wing has a higher degree of sweep than the rest of the wing. The stated purpose of this additional feature is to improve fuel efficiency and climb performance, and to shorten takeoff field length. It does this in much the same way that winglets do, by increasing the effective aspect ratio of the wing and interrupting harmful wingtip vortices. This decreases the amount of lift-induced drag experienced by the aircraft. In testing by Boeing and NASA, raked wingtips have been shown to reduce drag by as much as 5.5%, as opposed to improvements of 3.5% to 4.5% from conventional winglets.[20]

While an equivalent increase in wingspan would be more effective than a winglet of the same length, the bending force becomes a greater factor. A 3-foot (90 cm) winglet has the same bending force as a 1-foot (30 cm) increase in span, yet gives the same performance gain as a 2-foot (60 cm) wing span increase.[32] Increasing wingspan can also present difficulties in ground handling. For this reason, the short-range Boeing 787-3 design called for winglets instead of the raked wingtips featured on all other 787 variants.[citation needed]

Non-planar wingtips are normally angled upwards in a polyhedral wing configuration, increasing the local dihedral near the wing tip, with polyhedral wing designs themselves having been popular on free flight model aircraft designs for decades. Non-planar wingtips provide the wake control benefit of winglets, with less parasitic drag penalty, if designed carefully. The non-planar wing tip is often swept back like a raked wingtip and may also be combined with a winglet. A winglet is also a special case of a non-planar wingtip.[citation needed]

Aircraft designers employed mostly planar wing designs with simple dihedral after World War II, prior to the introduction of winglets. With the wide acceptance of winglets in new sailplane designs of the 1990s, designers sought to further optimize the aerodynamic performance of their wingtip designs. Glider winglets were originally retrofitted directly to planar wings, with only a small, nearly right-angle, transition area. Once the performance of the winglet itself was optimized, attention was turned to the transition between the wing and winglet. A common application was tapering the transition area from the wing tip chord to the winglet chord and raking the transition area back, to place the winglet in the optimal position. If the tapered portion was canted upward, the winglet height could also be reduced. Eventually, designers employed multiple non-planar sections, each canting up at a greater angle, dispensing with the winglets entirely.[citation needed]

Closed surfaces at the end of winglets are a possible way to substantially decrease the wake vortices induced at the tips of a wing. An example of a closed-surface winglet is the Spiroid winglet, a design currently[when?] under development by Aviation Partners[citation needed]. These Spiroid winglets have also been flight tested on a Falcon 50 aircraft.[33]

The Boeing 737 MAX uses a new type of wingtip device.[34] Resembling a three-way hybrid between a blended winglet, wingtip fence, and raked wingtip, Boeing claims that this new design should deliver an additional 1.5% improvement in fuel economy over the 10-12% improvement already expected from the 737 MAX.

There has been research into actuating wingtip devices, including a filed patent application,[37] though no aircraft currently uses this feature as described. The XB-70 Valkyrie's wingtips were capable of drooping downward in flight, to facilitate Mach 3 flight using waveriding.

Wingtip devices are also used on rotating propeller, helicopter rotor, and wind turbine blades to reduce drag, reduce diameter, reduce noise and/or improve efficiency. By reducing aircraft blade tip vortices interacting with the ground surface during taxiing, takeoff, and hover, these devices can reduce damage from dirt and small stones picked up in the vortices.[38]

The main rotor of the AgustaWestland AW101 (formerly the EH101) has a special "winged tip"; pilots have found that this alters the downwash field and reduces brownout which limits visibility in dusty areas and leads to accidents.[39]

Hartzell Propeller developed their "Q-tip" propeller used on the Piper PA-42 Cheyenne and several other fixed-wing aircraft types by bending the blade tips back at a 90-degree angle to get the same thrust from a reduced diameter propeller disk; the reduced propeller tip speed reduces noise, according to the manufacturer.[38] Modern scimitar propellers have increased sweepback at the tips, resembling a raked tip on an aircraft wing.

^ ab"What is a Q-Tip propeller? What are its advantages?". Product Support: Frequently Asked Questions. Hartzell Propeller. Retrieved August 1, 2009. Aerodynamic improvements include a reduced diameter and decreased tip speeds. This results in quieter operation and reduced tip vortices. The 90° bend reduces the vortices that, on traditional blades, pick up debris that can contact the blades and cause nicks, gouges and scratches.

^Harvey, Gareth (November 28, 2005). "Super Chopper : Life-Saving Features: No More Brown-Outs". Engineering Archives. National Geographic Channel. Retrieved August 1, 2009. To counteract this, the EH101’s ‘winged-tip’ rotor blades create what its pilots call the “donut effect” – a circular window of clear air inside the dust storm that allows them to see the ground as they come in to land.

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